How to Create and Manage Characters with Save the Cat!® Story Suite
Jason Kolinsky
We’ve made it easy to create and manage your characters inside Save the Cat! Story Suite. From your first idea to a full cast, everything lives in one place—and stays connected as your story grows.
Create Your Characters in One Place
Inside the Characters tab, you can start building your cast right away.
Add a character, give them a name, a short description, and define their role in the story.
You can keep it simple to start—or go deeper as the story develops.
Build Out What Matters
As your characters take shape, you can expand each one to include the details that actually drive the story.
That includes:
- what they want
- what they need
- their blind spots and flaws
- the pressures they face
In Save the Cat! terms, this is where you define the shard of glass—the thing the character can’t yet see about themselves. Because that’s where change begins.
Keep Everything Connected
Characters don’t exist in isolation.
They connect to:
- other characters
- relationships
- scenes
As you add notes—facts, relationships, or story details—they stay connected across your project.
So when you move between different parts of your story, you’re always working with the same information.
Track Characters Across Your Story
As your story develops, character activity is tracked automatically.
When a character:
- appears in a scene
- is mentioned in notes
- or speaks in dialogue
That information is reflected back into their profile, which makes it easier to see:
- where they show up
- how often
- and how their role evolves
See the Big Picture
Sometimes the fastest way to understand a story is to step back and look at it.
On the board, you can use color-coding to track character arcs across your scenes.
At a glance, you can see:
- which scenes belong to which character
- how their story moves
- and how everything connects
Keep Writing Without Slowing Down
If a new character shows up while you’re writing, you can add them instantly—without breaking your flow.
Highlight the name, add them as a character, and keep going.
You can always come back and build them out later.
From Characters to Story
Creating characters is one thing.
Understanding what they’re doing in your story is what matters.
When your characters are clear:
- their choices make sense
- their relationships connect
- and the story moves the way it should
Ready to Get Started?
Check out the Save the Cat! Story Suite now!
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